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Identity Cards Bill

I appreciate that and I appreciate why the noble Baroness said it. However, under the terms of her amendment the costs are an essential point. The amendment also states in paragraph (b)(iv) that the Secretary of State should review annually whether the costs are ““affordable””. However, we need to know what the costs are now, not what they will be in a year’s time. That is the question I have to put to my noble friend. I am sure that she is aware of it. If she does not have the answer in her brief, she will get it somehow or other from somewhere. However, I hope that she can give it to us today because, if we do not know what the costs are, we cannot answer the questions posed in the very first amendment. I hope that my noble friend will be able to give us the actual costs, and the assumptions underlying the figures. I am bound to express that I have some misgivings about all the figures bandied about by various university research teams and, indeed, by the Government themselves. I should like to read what my noble friend says today and to have it placed in the Library for all of us to see. I want to see both the way in which the Government have calculated the costs and the assumptions underlying them. It seems to me that the costs could be hugely in excess of anything that the Government have yet mentioned. That is not unimportant as regards the question of whether we approve the whole idea of identity cards, to which I am not personally opposed. I should make that quite clear. However, if the costs are to be as astronomical as we have been led to believe, we need to know not only whether the costs are affordable, but whether they constitute value for money in relation to many other questions that will arise. If my noble friend does not have all those answers available this afternoon, I certainly hope that she will be able to satisfy us by making everything available to us later, so that we can make a proper assessment of this amendment and many others that may arise later.